


Fictober shorts: Gunnery Chief

by Lyrishadow



Series: Fictober 2020 Shorts [27]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27226861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrishadow/pseuds/Lyrishadow
Summary: Prompt27: “Give me that”Fandom: Mass EffectTitle: Gunnery ChiefPair: Malcolm / AshleyRating: T
Relationships: Male Shepard/Ashley Williams
Series: Fictober 2020 Shorts [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977133
Kudos: 4





	Fictober shorts: Gunnery Chief

Even with the relay’s, there was still downtime on the Normandy, and Malcolm liked to use it to blow off steam in the cargo bay behind where the mako sat parked. He had a punching bag set up.  
He also liked to clean, and maintain his own gun. A situation which he had already had out with Alenko, and was about to butt heads with their own Gunnery Chief Ashley, not that he minded her doing her job but his guns were his problems, if they failed in the field, that was his life and the lives of the people he was with on the line.

“What’s up Skipper? Need me to work on that?” Ashley asked from the workbench where she had taken up residence. Her hand on Kaidan’s pistol and cleaning it, fixing some of the targeting system linked on her computer.  
“No, I do my own guns,” Malcolm muttered like he had not had his coffee this morning, for some reason his guns were a no-go zone for him, and people making offers of cleaning or calibrating them were usually roughly pushed away.  
“You… don’t trust me?” Ash backed off a step carefully avoiding Malcolm as he set himself up on the other end of the bench.  
“Not that.”  
“Give me that… you know it’s in the rank title right… I have always…”   
“Stop.” Malcolm swung around on Ash as he dismantled his gun without looking at it “If I wanted you to deal with my guns I would order it.”  
“Ok.” Ash glared back at her computer.  
For a split second Malcolm felt bad, he liked Ashley, maybe a little more than he should but he did not want her to think he had just put a note in her file or anything.  
“Ash?”  
“Skipper?” Ash raised her eyebrow, not taking her eye off the targeting data on her screen.  
“Sorry.” He cleaned the components of his gun before reassembling it.   
“I’m an N7, a lot rides on my guns being exact.”  
“I know.” Ash replied hitting the final key to get the sequence on Kaidan’s gun correct before adding “Sorry.”  
“Amazing, we are actually both adults after all.” Malcolm deadpanned “It took me a lot to learn it in life Williams, an apology does not cost you anything, not apologizing could cost you a war.”  
“Understood.”  
“You have a good record, exemplary scores, you push yourself to be the best” Malcolm continued the whole time cleaning and adjusting his weapons “I sincerely think you have what it takes to be one of the best of the Alliance. Heck, maybe even a spectre.”  
“What?” Ash spun to face him her surprise and genuine shock on her face.  
“Skipper, it was hard enough getting to Gunnery Chief.”  
“Yeah.” he finished with the next weapon and glanced at her “I read the file, the reports everything, I don’t see why you would have had so much trouble..”  
“It’s not the work.” Ash shook her head “I guess I might as well tell you.”  
“Tell me what?”  
“My Grandfather was General Williams.”  
“Shanxi.” Malcolm replied watching the twenty emotions flicker over the face of the woman next to him. “That explains a few things.”  
“Yeah, the only human “ to ever surrender to aliens”, his reputation and his name came down the line.” Ash sounded defeated as if she expected him to now kick her off the crew. She began to clean up her work station.  
“Is that fair to him?”   
“Huh?”  
“Your Grandfather?” Malcolm had begun work on his next weapon at this point “Can I use your computer?”  
“Sure…” Ash pushed it around so that it was facing him, and he pulled up the targeting for his own weapon. “What do you mean is it fair to him? We lost Shanxi…”  
“He saved lives Williams, backed into a corner if he had kept fighting the cost would have been…”  
“Like Torfan?”  
“Yeah.”  
“You don’t regret Torfan at all do you?” she was curious and he supposed it was fair that he give her the information she was after.  
“Not what the result was.” He replied carefully “But the process at the time…”  
“I see.”  
“No… my mother was assigned to a ship that arrived at Mindoir after the colony was raided. I was lucky to not be with her on that cruise.” He had been sent to boarding school, in one of his mother’s more daring ideas of educating her son. “I heard though, you have to be pretty deaf not to.”   
Ash looked up at him and waited.   
“The soldiers who returned from the surface of Mindoir the ones who had made it there and back, they were shell shocked, an entire colony, and the ones left were brutalized, burned, and…” he stopped and shook his head angrily “Batarian pirates were to blame and I was not going to let it stop me doing my job as a marine until Elysium.”  
“Shit.” Ash said in response “I completely forgot about that, so that’s the background?”  
“Yes. Hearing things I wasn’t meant to hear and just generally being aware of what happened.” He swallowed “My commanding officer was a Major Kyle. He sent us in, but … the pirates were waiting. They took out most of the squad.”  
“I see.” Ash paused again, clearly a question she wanted to ask.  
“Come on, I can see the burning question, just ask it.”  
“How… did you go from… Shepherd the soldier to the…’ Butcher of Torfan”  
“I hate that nickname.” Malcolm shook his head irritated as he hit the enter key on the targeting system and loaded the data into his gun “When you see your whole squad die, and you know this, the first thing you want is a chance to take revenge. I was stuck inside, my squad was down and I was sure as hell taking as many of these bastards with me as I could.”  
“You took a lot,” Ashley replied, with an unmistakable hint of appreciation.  
“But I wouldn’t have run that risk if I had my squad in my command. I was solo at that point.” He turned away “You don’t get trained for dealing with people who can wipe out your entire squad in front of you, and then question why you killed them; I figured I had nothing to lose. So yeah, I earned the name and I wear it, I don’t like it though.”  
“So you don’t think my grandfather was wrong?” Ash asked then.  
“No, he had the odds and made a tactical decision. He protected his men, and that is all anyone can ask of a commander.”  
“I.. might have to think about that a while,” Ash replied quietly.  
“Sure, I’m done here.” Malcolm shrugged and gathered his gear to stow in his storage locker. He stopped a moment and turned to Ash  
“If you earn my trust, I will let you deal with my guns.” It was a big deal for Malcolm, as close to flirting as he could get. his face felt red as he turned and walked back towards the deck.


End file.
